er south, it is the custom for the boys, on
arriving at the age of puberty, to have _one_ of the upper front teeth
knocked out, but no more; nor are the girls subjected to the same
operation. At Twofold Bay, still further south, no such custom prevails,
nor did I observe it at Port Phillip or King George's Sound, on the South
Coast; but at Van Diemen's Land it seems to be used partially, for M.
Labillardiere says (p. 320 of the London translation), "we observed some,
in whom one of the middle teeth of the upper jaw was wanting, and others
in whom both were gone. We could not learn the object of this custom; but
it is not general, for the greater part of the people had all their
teeth." The rite of circumcision, which seemed to have been practised
upon two of the three natives at Horse-shoe Island, and of which better
proofs were found in other parts of the Gulph of Carpentaria, is, I
believe, novel in the history of Terra Australis.

On Sweers' Island, seven human skulls and many bones were found lying
together, near three extinguished fires; and a square piece of timber,
seven feet long, which was of teak wood, and according to the judgment of
the carpenter had been a quarter-deck carling of a ship, was thrown up on
the western beach. On Bentinck's Island I saw the stumps of at least
twenty trees, which had been felled with an axe, or some sharp instrument
of iron; and not far from the same place were scattered the broken
remains of an earthen jar. Putting these circumstances together, it
seemed probable that some ship from the East Indies had been wrecked
here, two or three years back--that part of the crew had been killed by
the Indians--and that the others had gone away, perhaps to the main land,
upon rafts constructed after the manner of the natives. This could be no
more than conjecture; but it seemed to be so supported by the facts, that
I felt anxious to trace the route of the unfortunate people, and to
relieve them from the distress and danger to which they must be exposed.

The advantages to be obtained here by a ship are briefly these: shelter
against all winds in the Investigator's Road, wood for fuel, fresh water,
and a tolerable abundance of fish and turtle; for to anticipate a little
on the voyage, there are islands lying within reach of a boat from the
Road, where the turtle are not disturbed by the Indians. Should it ever
enter into the plan of an expedition, to penetrate into the interior of
Terra Aust